Napoleon in Egypt

December 20, 2007

It is unclear for how long Juan Cole worked on Napoleon's Egypt: Invading the Middle East, but the book as it stands could not have been conceptualized before the beginning of the present Iraq War in 2003. The folly of our current undertaking in Iraq has been documented by a shelf of books and DVDs. A week or two ago a finally watched the documentary No End in Sight.. and it made the perfect companion piece to Napoleon's Egypt: both concentrated on the imperialistic hubris of the conqueror.. and the way high flown rhetorical ideals come crashing down when they meet colonial reality.

What I found disappointing in this book is the complete focus on the military and imperialistic project of the French in Egypt. I had wanted to learn more about the group of scientists and artists that produced the Description de l'Egypte (now available online!). But I found it hard to imagine the compilation of that great work in the midst of the chaos that Cole was describing. Cole has told a story that would never have taken this exact form were it not for the exemplars in books and film that have taken up the topic of the Iraq War. I am not, of course, saying that imperialism and colonialism are topics just discovered, but to write about them by means of a near exclusive concentration on personal foibles, administrative mishaps, and rhetorical bombast is a formal choice that has become possible only recently.

Cole's writing style in this book is oddly reminiscent of his widely read blog. I have a fascination with the difference in voice that arises between a blog post and a book.. and often times I find I can read a blogger in a short blog format but lose patience when it comes to a book format (Andrew Sullivan). Cole wrote Napoleon's Egypt in a voice easily recognizable to readers of Informed Comment. There was the same marshalling of possible views (often content to leave contradictory statements unresolved) and then a colorful summarizing sweep.. crowned by a quick step back and a moral judgment: "If this is true, then it was clearly a war crime.." It is a style that was blog-honed.

Cole gave a few hints about a story I would like to see further developed: the French response to the Egyptian landscape.

The engineers among the officers began rearranging the city to their specifications, tearing down what they viewed as useless tombs or sufi shrines that got in the way of straighter, broader avenues, or removing the barriers between city quarters. Turk recalled that they destroyed "the mosques and minarets at al-Azbakiya Square so as to widen the streets for the passage of their wagons." [185]

As I have argued elsewhere, this re-alignment would have been almost unconscious. "Obvious" renovations would be added by the French.. but those modifications would willy-nilly introduce a new way of thinking about the landscape.

Here is another example:

Bonaparte ordered that extensive new fortifications be built in Cairo and environs, even if they involved tearing down mosques (al-Jabarti lamented the demise of the al-Maqs Mosque, another at Imbaba, and the al-Kazaruni Mosque at Roda Island, among others). The military engineers widened streets and chopped down date palms. [214]

Details about these efforts at Frenchification of the Cairo I think would be fascinating.. just as a look at the Americanization of Iraqi cities and villages would likewise be fascinating.